The Rincon/University Rangers picked up an important road win against the Cholla Chargers 8-6 in a 4A Gila region game on Friday night.
This game was dominated by the defenses from the start, with the first points of the game not coming until the middle of the second quarter when Cholla mishandled a punt and recovered it in its own end zone for a safety to put Rincon/University up 2-0.
The Rangers (2-3, 1-1 4A Gila) took that 2-0 lead into halftime with Cholla receiving the opening kickoff of the second half.
Like the first half, the third quarter was still a defensive game with neither team scoring throughout the whole quarter.
With 9:50 to go in the fourth quarter, Rincon wide receiver Mananne Abakar caught a 59-yard touchdown to extend the Rincon lead to 8-0 after an unsuccessful extra-point attempt.
After a long completion to wide receiver Ray Satathite that set the Chargers up in the red zone, Cholla ran it on a quarterback draw to get on the board. However, the 2-point conversion was unsuccessful for Cholla, on a similarly drawn play that got them the touchdown.
Cholla was able to force Rincon to punt the ball away with 4:50 left in the game, needing any type of score to take the lead.
On a decisive fourth down with around a minute to go, Cholla’s deep pass was incomplete and Rincon/University took over. From there, the Rangers kneeled the ball a couple of times and were victorious, bouncing back from a 33-0 loss at Rio Rico the week before.
Cholla (1-5, 0-2) will next host Douglas (2-4, 2-0) on Friday night in another region game.
Rincon/University has had a tough start to the season with injuries and eligibility issues but will be looking to use this game as an engine for the rest of the season.
“We’ve been struggling. We’ve already had a small team, but this week we got back a lot of our key players. We changed around a few things, started going more run-heavy and we told the kids, it’s about execution here,” said first-year Rincon/University coach Johnny Chan.
The Rangers will travel to play Vista Grande in Casa Grande on Friday for their last non-region game of the season, before returning home to play Amphitheater on Oct. 18..
Henry Kaplowitz is a senior at the University of Arizona studying journalism. He is interested in sports reporting and can be reached at henrykaplowitz@arizona.edu.
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